Speedway Boulevard: Tucson from End to End

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Civic pride sometimes takes curious forms. In Tucson the natives still delight in telling newcomers about the time when Life magazine called its main business thoroughfare “the ugliest street in America.” Which is not exactly true. On July 24, 1970, Life published a photo essay on blighted American streets headlined “Look Down, Look Down That Loathsome Road.” The lead photo, splashed across two pages, was a portrait of Tucson's Speedway Boulevard, compressed by a 1,000-millimeter telephoto lens into a ghastly jungle of car lots, drive-ins, and billboards. The caption said Tucson's mayor had called it America's ugliest street. Mayor Jim Corbett denied that he'd ever used suchlanguage. The Arizona Daily Star then crowed that it had bestowed the honor editorially. But the source didn't really matter, nor did the fact that the publicity was bad. Speedway had made Tucson famous, if only for a week. Speedway began in 1896 as Wilson Street, a dirt road in a new subdivision on Tucson's northern edge. It endured several name changes before evolving into “The Speedway” in 1904. In 1911, 6,000 spectators, nearly half Tucson's population of 13,193, lined the street to watch the town's first automobile race. The highest speed was 48 miles per hour, a velocity that would be illegal eight decades later. Speedway grazed the University ofArizona campus, so when Tucson began to boom after World War II, it logically blossomed as the city's most prominent commercial strip. “Blossomed” is probably the wrong word; students of urban design would say “metastasized.” Speedway developed not by rational plan or community consensus but by developer after developer plunking down commercial strips, which their tenants would embellish with the largest most lurid signs possible to compete for attention. Warren Anderson, a UofA art professor at the time, who studied America's roadside scenery, once called Speedway “so much chaos that even the chaos becomes monotonous.” Bonnie Henry, a columnist for The Arizona Daily Star, language. The Arizona Daily Star then crowed that it had bestowed the honor editorially. But the source didn't really matter, nor did the fact that the publicity was bad. Speedway had made Tucson famous, if only for a week. Speedway began in 1896 as Wilson Street, a dirt road in a new subdivision on Tucson's northern edge. It endured several name changes before evolving into “The Speedway” in 1904. In 1911, 6,000 spectators, nearly half Tucson's population of 13,193, lined the street to watch the town's first automobile race. The highest speed was 48 miles per hour, a velocity that would be illegal eight decades later. Speedway grazed the University of Arizona campus, so when Tucson began to boom after World War II, it logically blossomed as the city's most prominent commercial strip. “Blossomed” is probably the wrong word; students of urban design would say “metastasized.” Speedway developed not by rational plan or community consensus but by developer after developer plunking down commercial strips, which their tenants would embellish with the largest most lurid signs possible to compete for attention. Warren Anderson, a UofA art professor at the time, who studied America's roadside scenery, once called Speedway “so much chaos that even the chaos becomes monotonous.” Bonnie Henry, a columnist for The Arizona Daily Star,

SPEEDWAY

labeled it “a teenager’s dream, a zoning board’s nightmare.” Since Tucson had no east-west freeway (it still doesn’t), Speedway choked so badly with rush-hour traffic that engineers converted the center turn lane into a reversible lane that arrowed west in the morning and east in the afternoon. Tucsonans termed it the “suicide lane” and avoided it if they had any brains. Pedestrians were aliens in the Speedway environment; sidewalks and landscaping were as rare as chestnut vendors.

Speedway today is being spruced up, but it will never be Cinderella. Yet it deserves some respect: it is Tucson’s real downtown. It has just taken the form of a low-rise, linear strip devoted to the car culture instead of a compact huddle of towers joined by sidewalks. We have voted for it with our feet our right feet, planted firmly on accelerator pedals.

In Speedway’s 23 miles lies more diver-sity than any downtown ever had. At the western end the road begins in a spectacular saguaro forest, and almost two dozen miles to the east it ends in a mesquite bosque that defies the desert. On Speedway you can buy an Arabian horse or a sailboat; hear a preacher sing his sermon; visit an art museum, a guest ranch, or a biker bar; shop the coun-try’s biggest cactus nursery or dine on blackstriped lobster ravioli - or bagels. You can tour politically charged neo-Aztecan murals and a bank that looks like an upended glass pyramid.

Speedway is a sprawling open-air gallery of commerce and culture, exhibiting the city’s charms, eccentricities, and warts. It happened precisely because it wasn’t planned. This may not be a convincing ar-gument for letting Speedway happen again, but it is an excellent reason for a tour.

Speedway begins as a winding two-lane road in the Tucson Mountain foothills west of the city. There are two businesses in its first mile. One is Scordato’s, an elegant Italian restaurant. The other is Michael Ives’ art gallery, unadvertised and hidden among the 17 stone cottages of Rancho de Las Lomas. Las Lomas was built in the 1930s by Margaret Spencer, one of the first female architects in Arizona. She was armed with degrees in architecture and engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but local legend insists she drew the floor plans for Las Lomas on the ground with a stick. It

could be true. The unpretentious little houses ramble across the landscape with an organic caprice that suggests they were inspired more by Nature than a Boston classroom.

Michael Ives stumbled across Las Lomas shortly after moving to Tucson in 1971. The place became his residence, studio, and gallery. The desert became a part of his art.

"I'm out in the back painting, and a herd of javelinas will walk by. I talk to them a little bit, throw them a rotten cantaloupe, and everybody's happy. If bugs fall in my work, God bless 'em, I just paint right over 'em."

Ives' paintings and folk-art furniture tend toward the whimsical, so the odd acrylicked beetle isn't out of place. In the kitchen hangs a painting titled Cow Clouds, which depicts a sky full of Dalmatian-spotted cattle. Then there's his "road kill" series: plywood animals with vivid tire tracks streaking across their backs. "I figured it was time for some controversy in my career," Ives says. "I could envision a crowd of people standing outside, shouting, 'How dare you!'"

Protesters never came, but buyers do. "When I was in a gallery in town, people would come in and buy one piece. Here they come out and sit for a couple of hours and buy four or five pieces, and sometimes I go home with them and help hang them. I'm becoming friends with the people who buy my work."

Ives credits Margaret Spencer's little house; its eccentricity enchants visitors who can't resist exploring it. On the downside, the roof leaks and critters abound. He gives the tarantulas a gentle ride outside and catches rattlers on the patio with a snake pole and transplants them to a nice arroyo downhill from the house.

"Scorpions are about the only thing I'll kill," Ives sighs. He sounds like he feels guilty.

Ricardo and Maria Luisa Norzagaray moved to Speedway in 1943 with little more than the con-viction that God would provide. He has, and they have stayed - 50 years at the same Speedway address.

They bought the land for $500, but since there was a war on, they couldn't find building materials at any price. Finally they pitched a seven-by-seven-foot tent on the lot. There they lived for a year, along with four of their children. Extreme hardship? "No," says Maria Luisa.

"I figured we were here for a reason our youngest son had trachoma, so we were in Tucson to have him treated and I figured the Lord would provide a way for us to manage." In 1944 they began building a house. He worked 14 hours a day in a bakery; she clerked in a department store. They raised vegetables and chickens to save on groceries. The child's medical bills ran $30 a week, a horrific sum for the time. Maria Luisa remembers the moment at which she knew the family would make it. "One day some people in a car stopped, admiring my vegetables and flowers. I picked some and put them in a basket. I said, 'You can have some; we have plenty.' They said, 'No, we want to pay you for them. They gave Me $4. I said to my husband, 'You know, the Lord provides." The vegetable garden, the children, and bucolic tranquility are all gone from the Norzagarays' Speedway house today. He is 78, she is 76, and they sometimes talk of moving. The neighborhood has changed. Occasionally they hear gunfire. But two-thirds of their lives are etched into this little house a seam in a wall recalls the year they added a bedroom, a picture of a dark-haired beauty recalls the daughter who died in a car accident a few blocks away, just off Speedway. The talk of leaving seems unreal.

is a green fenced-in island of middle America, a golf course that had about as much to do with the neighborhood's needs as a moon landing. In 1970 nearby residents began staging regular Saturday morning demonstrations, demanding a neighborhood center. Arrests were made, some acrimony was vented on both sides, and in 1972 El Rio Neighborhood Center replaced the old pro shop. Today the neighborhood center and El Rio golf course coexist in peace.

Antonio Pazos Jimenez, assistant director of the center, painted several of the outdoor murals that decorate it today. One depicts a line of brown-skinned marchers stretching to infinity and bearing a banner: EL RIO BELONGS TO THE PEOPLE. Above

EL RIO BELONGS TO THE PEOPLE!

them dances Huitzlopoxtli, the Aztec god of war; and a woman with broken chains draped from her arms, representing freedom. Another portrays a summit of two Aztec warlords negotiating an agreement. Jimenez says it's an allegory about gangs settling territorial disputes by talking, not fighting.

"When I started painting, people in the neighborhood told me, 'You're totally crazy - in two days these are going to be full of graffiti.' It's been 18 years now, and nothing's happened. The imagery in the murals is their culture, and they're not going to take it away from themselves."

The best work of architecture on Speedway is also the smallest: a privy at the Santa Cruz River Park. This linear park flanks the normally dry Santa Cruz riverbed, decorating its banks with flowers, grass, playgrounds, and public art. Architect Les Wallach, whose office overlooks Speedway a couple of miles to the east, won the commission to design the park's outdoor toilets in 1992. The city said it wanted privies that were "nice-looking" and "comfortable." To Wallach that sounded like a mandate to reinvent the rest room.

"First we went out and looked at a lot of them," he says. "They were stinky, dingy, really awful places. Partitions had been eliminated to try to cut down on vandalism. Gangs had established territories inside. You really had to be desperate to use one."

To restore privacy, Wallach designed each stall as an enclosed one-person lockable cubicle, too small for a meeting. To attack odor, he mounted a wind turbine to lure air out of the stalls. To give the rest room an architectural presence in the park, he added color with teal ceramic tiles and arched maroon steel roofs, and teased the sky with a tower for the wind turbine.

You might think that an architect who enthuses about designing a rest room would be one more telling symbol of the early '90s recession, but that wasn't the case with Wallach. He's a stealth architect. He loves to tackle problems that nobody else has realized are problems, and lace the urban environment with quiet improvements.

The sermon begins softly, evenly, with the reading of Luke 15, the parable of the prodigal son. The preacher, a middle-aged barrel-shaped A man whose bearing underlines the word "dignity," makes a promise: "I won't keep you long today." The 20 members of the Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church know better; services routinely run two hours. They also know they'll be in no danger of dozing.

The Rev. Choyce Coleman begins addressing them in short, rhythmic sentences that sound like prose evolving toward poetry. When he says the word "God," it is a majestic curtain draped over the phrase around it. Almost imperceptibly, a crescendo builds, his tone becomes more intense, the rhythm more punctuated.

And suddenly it turns into music-the Rev. Coleman is singing his sermon; his dramatic tenor twisting scripture into melodic hills and valleys and ornamenting it with intense vibrato. It's halfway between operatic recitative and Bourbon Street jazz. His "Jeeeeeesus!" is a torrent of vowels. The congregation's "Oh, yes!" is pure energy flung back at the pulpit. Forty minutes after "I won't keep you long . . ." he begins to wrap it up. Some worshippers weep.

The Rev. Coleman was a computer programmer for International Business Machines in Tucson. Now he is a full-time minister to this tiny flock. He has no training in music, and he doesn't think his preaching is particularly special. "Most Southern preachers preach like this." Whatever voice was behind the pulpit today, "the Spirit has something to do with it."

Across the street is Yousef Mosque, with an equally tiny Islamic congregation.

The Muslim Sabbath is Friday, and the sermon climaxing the weekly Jumah prayer service is nothing that would be foreign to Christians.

"Practice honesty in all your dealings," says the imam, Muhammed Ishaq Qureshi.

He urges that we seek freedom from worldly attachments. He asks for prayers for a member who is in the hospital and for another whose father has died. He chants the final prayer in Urdu, the Pakistani language, but its plea is hardly exotic: "We believe in Him, and we put our trust in Him, and we seek Allah's protection against the evils and mischief of our souls, and from the bad results of our ddeeds."

The Muslims of Yousef Mosque are delighted with visitors. They don't care what religion we are or how deeply we choose to participate in Jumah. "Please, though, remove your shoes." They do care about the image of their faith. "Islam has been very much misunderstood," Qureshi says. "People think Islam has been spread by the sword, and that is wrong. Islam is spread by love. You can't blame the religion for violence; you must blame the people who misrepresent the religion."

For much of a century Speedway formed the northern boundary of the University of Arizona, but 25 years ago the campus spilled across it like a rain-swollen reservoir breaching a dam. And the floods just kept coming; the colleges of law, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and business and public administration now reside on the north side, and three underpasses carry students on foot and bike under the traffic.

For the Speedway traveler, the most entertaining pieces of the sprawling university remain to the south. The fine arts neighborhood abuts Speedway and includes the UA Museum of Art, Center for Creative Photography, School of Music, Department of Drama, and College of Architecture. The Museum of Modern Art is a remarkable treasure housed in one of the campus' least remarkable buildings-it looks like a place where you'd find the accounting department. Inside, though, is a permanent collection of more than 3,000 works from the 15th century to the present, the most stunning of which may be New Mexico sculptor Luis Jimenez's Man on Fire.

Peter Bermingham, the long-time director, also combs the campus and the country for temporary exhibitions. But it's becoming tougher all the time.

"The museum has endured budget cuts, like every department at the university," he says. "I'm at the point now of having to raise money show by show. The exhibition budget is about gone."

Bermingham adds, just a little wistfully, "I'm still an idealist, but I can't always fund my idealism."

Cuts or not, idealism always blooms among the fine arts. The School of Music last year got a desperately needed building addition, but money ran out before seats could be bought for its renovated concert hall. Undaunted, music students staged a benefit performance of Mozart's opera Cosi fan Tutti in a nearby church to raise money. The seats arrived this past summer.

It is 6:30 on Friday night, and the rumbles are beginning. One by one, immense, brawny American cars, most dating from the '50s, '60s and '70s, nose into the parking lot of Coach's Deli. There's a voluptuous 1969 Camaro convertible, a drop-dead lovely 1962 Corvette, and a 1957 Plymouth wearing cartoonshark fins. But the most fascinating part of the show is the sound track. To ears conditioned to the polite hums of modern four-cylinder engines, the rumbling basso profundo of these monster V-8s sounds like rhythmic thunder.

Camaro convertible, a drop-dead lovely 1962 Corvette, and a 1957 Plymouth wearing cartoonshark fins. But the most fascinating part of the show is the sound track. To ears conditioned to the polite hums of modern four-cylinder engines, the rumbling basso profundo of these monster V-8s sounds like rhythmic thunder.

This is a car club called Unique Vehicles of Arizona, which has no structure, no dues, no meetings except these weekly appearances at the deli. The "members" are mostly guys in their 30s, 40s, and 50s who used to cruise Speedway back in high school. And they're still doing it - most of them with wife and kids in tow, in restored cars fulfilling their 18-year-old fantasies. Bob Nalin, the '69 Camaro owner, is asked if he used to cruise Speedway. "I used to race Speedway. I got a ticket right here in front of this restaurant. It was crazy out here in the '70s. We had a quarter-mile marked off out on east Speedway, toward Redington Pass. You just kind of knew where the cops were." Weekend cruising has been a Speedway institution since cars were started with hand cranks; one senior club member recalls cruising Speedway as a UofA student in the 1920s. It was usually more about preening than racing; most carfuls of teenagers simply orbited from one drive-in to another, checking out each other's mechanized equipment. Once it took on a sinister undertow. In 1966 a 23 year old named Charles Schmid was convicted of killing three teenage girls in Tucson. The case drew national attention, particularly when Life ran an 11-page story focusing on the life-style of Schmid and his friends and victims which centered on cruising Speedway. "Of an evening kids with nothing to do wind up on Speedway, looking for action ." In the Life story, Speedway was a metaphor for empty lives. Kids still cruise Speedway, but it's not like the old days. The drive-ins are almost all gone, and the impromptu races have scattered to more secluded venues. The balding car freaks gathered at the deli mostly mill around outside, critiquing camshafts and the young wimps out school. And they're still doing it - most of them with wife and kids in tow, in restored cars fulfilling their 18-year-old fantasies. Bob Nalin, the '69 Camaro owner, is asked if he used to cruise Speedway. "I used to race Speedway. I got a ticket right here in front of this restaurant. It was crazy out here in the '70s. We had a quarter-mile marked off out on east Speedway, toward Redington Pass. You just kind of knew where the cops were." Weekend cruising has been a Speedway institution since cars were started with hand cranks; one senior club member recalls cruising Speedway as a UofA student in the 1920s. It was usually more about preening than racing; most carfuls of teenagers simply orbited from one drive-in to another, checking out each other's mechanized equipment. Once it took on a sinister undertow. In 1966 a 23 year old named Charles Schmid was convicted of killing three teenage girls

As member of an off-beat car club called Unique Vehicles of Arizona, cruises Speedway in his '62 Corvette. Club members, who range in age from the 30s to 50s, started cruising the thoroughfare in high school and are still at it, most in restored cars and some with their families along for the ride. (BELOW) Teenage "cowboy cruisers" also show up on Speedway, but the vintage car aficionados say it's not like the old days. (RIGHT, ABOVE) Eye-catching signs are a hallmark of Speedway. (RIGHT, BELOW) At Haircutters Association, one of the businesses along the road, barber Robin Garafola gives Marvin Middendorf a trim.

There cruising these days with their friends. "The kids've changed the way they modify their cars," says Nalin, not concealing his contempt. "Today it's mostly hopped-up stereos."

The haircuts cost just $6. The shaves are still done with a straight razor. There's none of this unisex business at Haircutters Associated; you know this is a guy's place the instant you walk in. Owner Bob Trask's old boxing gloves drape from a mirror. A collection of customers' caps and hats lines the shelves. One cap says "Viet Cong Hunting Club." There are three chairs but just two barbers, and some of the same customers have been getting their hair cut what's left of it since the 1950s. Ed Fitzpatrick opened the shop in 1954. Bob Trask and his son, Robin Garafola, bought it 10 years ago after moving from California to Tucson. "Haircutting was coming back in," Trask explains. "People in their 30s and 40s were still wanting styled long hair, but their kids started wanting short cuts, even flattops. Kids just have to be different."

East of the city, in the morning shadow of the humpbacked Rincon Mountains, Speedway again becomes a rural two-lane. There's little traffic, but a lot of German and Japanese visitors find their way here. Robert White studies an invoice. A Japanese customer has just paid $2,178 plus shipping for an assortment of potted cacti. White suspects the buyer isn't a casual collector. "It'll retail in Japan for several times that," he says.

S T R E E T L I N E

White started growing cacti in 1972 be-cause he liked to have blooming plants handy to photograph as a hobby. Eventually it blossomed into a serious nursery. White believes B&B Cactus Farm sells the largest variety of cacti in the country. A lot of them go out of the country. Cacti are very big today, says White, in Germany and Japan.

The nursery has more than three acres of prickly plants, some of which amaze even Arizonans. Aporocactus flagelliformis, or “rat tails,” grow in hanging pots with limp green tails dangling toward the floor. There is a mutation of Mammillaria elonga-ta, v. cristata, or “brain cactus,” which looks for all the world like folds of green brain tissue. There are cacti furnished with white spines, golden spines, and red spines; cacti sporting flowers in red, yellow, orange, scarlet, and pink; cacti shaped like spheres, royal crowns, pickles, light bulbs, and sheer Alice-in-Wonderland fantasies.

White says the biggest problem buyers find when they take a cactus home for transplanting is not getting lacerated by it, but breaking the plant. “Cacti are kind of fragile,” he says.

It's about 8 o'clock on a Saturday morning. Dr. Robert Dryden is scheduled in surgery at 9:30, but he's still dressed in dusty jeans, faded bandanna, and straw hat, ferrying bales of hay on a tractor. He's a specialist in eye and plastic surgery, but his heart is here at Fable Arabians, a stud farm.

Hidden in the mesquite forest along Speedway's easternmost two miles are a dozen equestrian farms. Most specialize in Arabians. The Drydens explain why: "The Arabian is the horse of the desert, but that's not why I fell in love with them," says he. "They're the most beautiful of horses.

Everything is rounded, not angular; and when they move, they move very gracefully. And yet I can take my horses and ride to the top of the Santa Ritas [elevation 9,453 feet] with no conditioning. That's 30 miles."

"They're sort of like a sports car," adds Laurie, Robert's wife. "They're like decathlon athletes; they can do anything. They're very willing, but you'd better know what you're doing when you get on one. They don't tolerate abuse."

The Drydens run Fable Arabians as a business, though it hasn't made money since 1986. The horses generate other forms of profit, particularly for their children.

"Being around horses, they've learned to deal with birth; they've learned to deal with death; they've learned to deal with sex," says Laurie. "When they've been ostracized at a

new school, they've understood it because they've seen the same thing happen among the horses. These are things many adults are still trying to work out in their 50s."

Life at the end of Speedway may be as idyllic as anyplace in the country, whether one craves Nature, a good place to ride, or mere seclusion (Paul McCartney is one of the Drydens' especially secluded neighbors). This will not last. Developers crave to slice the 40acre ranches into one-acre ranchettes, carving country into suburbs. Nearly every week some broker calls, hoping to list the Drydens' place for sale. Which is perfectly in character on Speedway, in town or out. Speedway has always been about dreams, frenzies, acts of creation. It's a showcase for everything that's wrong and right with this country, from greed through kitsch to art. It might be America's most typical street.

Travel Guide: For detailed information about the great variety of places to travel in Arizona, we recommend the guidebook Travel Arizona and Arizona: Land of Contrasts, a video by Bill Leverton. Both will direct you to exciting destinations and out-ofthe-way attractions. Our Arizona Road Atlas, featuring maps of 27 cities, mileage charts, and points of interest, also is a necessity for travelers. To order, telephone toll-free 1 (800) 5435432. In the Phoenix area, call 258-1000.

WHEN YOU GO

If you are interested in experiencing the many varied places and people of Speedway Boulevard, take Interstate 10 East from Phoenix to Tucson. When you get to Tucson, take Exit 257, Speedway Boulevard. To start at the beginning of the road, turn right and go about five miles to where Speedway begins in the foothills of the Tucson Mountains. A major metropolis, Tucson has changed considerably since it was a walled city in the late 1700s. Today the "Old Pueblo" has a population of more than a half million people and lures visitors with a host of attractions. For more information about places to visit while in Tucson, call the Tucson Convention and Visitors Bureau toll-free at 1 (800) 638-8350.

hoto Adventures Focusing on the Glories of Navajo Country

Humility and kinship well up from the heart during travel through Navajo Country's Monument Valley, with its otherworldly 250-million-year-old sculptured sandstone buttes, and Canyon de Chelly, where countless Indian ruins hide in a maze of canyons. The humility is an irresistible reaction to the region's geologic wonders: its rainbowcolored canyons, mountains, and deserts. Kinship is from the eerie feeling of familiarity the traveler feels during stops at many of the ancient tribal sites. Both the geologic wonders and ancient mysteries of Monument Valley and Canyon de Chelly will be featured elements of Photo Workshops led by photographer John Drew, October 9 through 13, 1994, and January 24 through 29, 1995.

Drawing on Drew's special knowledge of the area, participants will visit and photograph world-famous sites including Monument Valley's Agathla Peak and Ear of the Wind. Highlights in Canyon de Chelly will include the South Rim Drive and Canyon del Muerto, the site of Antelope House.

On the final day of the workshop, students will visit Hubbell Trading Post, where weavers and silversmiths demonstrate their crafts; the Petrified Forest with its mineralized ancient trees; and the subtle multicolored Painted Desert.

Following are more trips in upcoming months.

PHOTO WORKSHOPS

Navajo Mountain Backpack; September 26-30; Gary Ladd.

Grand Canyon/North Rim; October 3-8; Christine Keith.

Monument Valley/Canyon de Chelly; October 9-13; John Drew.

Sedona/Oak Creek Canyon; November 3-6; Bob and Suzanne Clemenz.

WHEN YOU GO FRIENDS SCENIC TOURS

White Mountains Fly Fishing; September 29-October 2.

SCENIC TOURS WITH RAY MANLEY

These trips are organized primarily for mature adults.

Monument Valley/Canyon de Chelly; October 27-31.

Photo Workshops, sponsored by the Friends of Arizona Highways, provide photographers of all skill levels with tips and hands-on instruction to help them take pictures like those that appear in the magazine. Our master contributing photographers lead the workshops and are assisted by experts from Nikon, Hasselblad, Fuji, and Image Craft.

Scenic Tours also are available.

For more information on these and other tours, telephone the Friends' Travel Office, (602) 271-5904.

WHAT REALLY BECAME OF THE SOUTHWEST'S GREAT PREHISTORIC CULTURES?

Find out in the latest Arizona Highways book:

A.D. 1250 Ancient Peoples of the Southwest

In this handsome volume containing more than 200 full-color photographs, Lawrence W. Cheek explains the meteoric rise and, until now, mysterious decline of the major prehistoric Southwestern cultures. You'll explore spectacular ruins and see many of the artifacts these ancient peoples left behind.

Included is a separate 20" by 32" full-color map-guide, Indian Ruins of the Southwest, that provides detailed travel information on 25 sites featured in the book.

The 176-page, 10" by 13" hardcover book with map included is just $49.95 plus shipping and handling.

To order use the attached card, or call toll-free nationwide, 1-800-543-5432. In the Phoenix area or outside the U.S., call 602-258-1000.

Mileposts Bird-watcher's Alert

Beginning about mid-September, colorful migrating war-blers add to the attractions of Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge. Located in Altar Valley 60 miles southwest of Tucson, the preserve was set up to ensure the future of the masked bobwhite. In addition to more than 280 different kinds of birds, the "rolling sea of grass" and a cottonwood-lined stream also shelter antelope, white-tailed deer, mountain lions, bobcats, coyotes, javelinas, coatimundis, badgers, and ringtails. The refuge's Thea Ulen says the best spots to see 11 species of warblers, including painted redstarts, are from a new boardwalk through the wetlands at Arivaca Cienega and along a trail at Arivaca Creek, both found on the refuge's eastern boundary. If rain has been plentiful, she adds, there should be a showy profusion of goldeneye wild-flowers and migrating shore-birds and waders such as the white-faced Ibis and American avocets at Aguirre Lake near headquarters. To ask about current conditions, guided hikes, trails, biking, horseback riding, hunting, and camping (primitive campsites only), contact Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, P.O. Box 109, Sasabe, AZ 85633; (602) 823-4251.

Tempe Travel Guide

A free visitors guide available from the Tempe Convention & Visitors Bureau offers tips on Tempe attractions, events, hotels, restaurants, shopping, and sports facilities.

Arizona has 28 species of bats. Most roost in old mines, caves, buildings, beneath bridges, in hollow trees, and even dams. The small flying mammals devour thousands of insects nightly. Arizona's little brown bat eats about 600 mosquitoes per hour.

In addition to a Victorian Old Town bustling with shops and eateries plus a host of other must-see attractions, Tempe is the home of the Phoenix Cardinals, the Arizona State Univer-sity Sun Devils, the Fiesta Bowl, and the California Angels dur-ing baseball's spring training. The 1996 Super Bowl will be played at Sun Devil Stadium. To obtain the guide, telephone the Convention & Visitors Bureau toll-free at 1 (800) 283-6734; in the Phoenix area, call (602) 894-8158.

EVENTS Sweet Corn Festival September 2-3; Snowflake-Taylor

A few miles north of Show Low in high desert dotted with piñon and cedar trees, the old farm towns of Snowflake and Taylor build a weekend of fun around lip-smackin' good corn on the cob. Things kick off Friday with melodrama performances and a dance. On Satur-day watch the parade and then there'll be a kid's rodeo, a bike race, a car show, and arts and crafts displays. There will be a charge for some activities. Information: 536-4331.

Faire in the Square September 3-5; Prescott

The mile-high town's tree-lined picture-postcard Courthouse Plaza is the site for this long weekend showcasing juried arts and crafts by 180 artisans. When you get hungry, head for one of the more than two dozen restaurants within a block of the Plaza. Free admission. Information: 445-2000 or toll-free 1 (800) 266-7534.

Gunfighters Rendezvous September 3-5; Tombstone

At this Wild West celebration, visitors can have their photo taken with a gunfighter, compete in a costume parade for cash prizes, watch gunfight shows at the O.K. Corral, listen to old guys telling stories about the history of "The Town Too Tough to Die," and scuff up their boots at dances with live music. The fun takes place "all over town," and there will be a charge for shows at the corral made immortal when the Earps and Clantons shot it out near-by. Information: 457-3548.

Jazz on the Rocks September 24; Sedona

Spectacular red rock scenery adds to this annual event showcasing a wide range of rhythms: Gary Burton and Eddie Daniels will update Goodman with "Benny Rides Again," and the jazz duo Tuck and Patti returns. Also scheduled: Thelonius Monk, Jr., the African sounds of Kotoja, and the "swampy-bluesy" music of Mojo Hand. Bring something comfy to sit on. Admission is $35 in advance, $40 at the gate; kids under 12 with parent get in free. Information: 282-1985.

Fiddling Championship September 24-25; Payson

How can an event go wrong when it promises such attractions as a fellow who fiddles while standing on his head? It can't, especially since this also happens to be the 24th Annual State Championship gathering, and it presents the best fiddlers around. Besides the serious and not-so-serious toe-tapping diversions, there'll also be a fiddlemaking demonstration, a band scramble (bands are made up on the spot), and a "21-fiddle salute" at noon both days. Admission is $3 for adults and $2 for kids under 12. Information: 474-5242.

Event of the Month Despite a Scant Territorial History, Chino Valley Still Celebrates Its 'Capital' Past

Trust the folks in Chino Valley to turn a footnote into a yearly festival.

History says Prescott was Arizona's first territorial capital. Now here's Chino Valley ready to celebrate its eighth First Territorial Capital Days on September 3. What's up?

A footnote of history says the territorial government party set up camp and operated at Chino's Del Rio Springs for four months in 1864 before moving on to its permanent site in Prescott. Regardless, it's a great excuse for a party, and Chino Valley makes the most of it.

Most of the day-long activities are at the Chino Valley Community Center, and parking is free. We easily bypass booths offering souvenir trinkets and palm reading, but take mental note of a stand catering to our weakness: fry bread and its tasty elaboration, the Indian taco.

The Chino Run not a race but an all-inclusive car show exhibits a variety of vehicles, some old, some older, some restored, some lovingly re-designed. A tractor chained to a stake makes endless circles with a dummy behind the wheel.

When it's time for the car show awards, the second-place winner in the "under construction" category can't drive up for his prize, but he runs through the course proudly waving an automotive air filter. He draws the loudest cheers.

The parade is forming now, and we head back to State Route 89, Chino Valley's main thoroughfare, for a better view. There's no big-city veneer on these spectators. An ROTC color guard from Prescott's Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University brings folks to their feet, hats removed. Kids scramble for treats tossed from one float. The Camp Verde Cavalry trots along in historic regalia, and the Chino Valley High School band fills the air with martial music.

Clog dancers, singers, and fiddlers keep the crowd entertained. But remember the fry bread in all community festivals the focus is ultimately on food. We missed the pancake breakfast, which went off better than the year when some wannabe chef talked the Lions Club into mixing the syrup into the batter. "A sticky

WHEN YOU GO

mess," recalls the Lions' Bill Magnus. The 45th annual Corn Dinner comes later. So we head for the buffalo wings and chili cook-offs.

Chili chefs travel the circuit, and most of these have competed against each other all over Arizona. Among the rules: no game meat, no macaroni, no beans. These are chili purists. For $2 we get a bowl, a spoon, and the right to sample. A veteran judge confides: the hottest chili seldom wins.

The Kiwanis-sponsored Corn Dinner has been around much longer than the First Territorial Capital festival has. This year Future Farmers of America members shucked some 10,000 ears of corn, nearly all of it sold later to all-you-can-eat aficionados. Some 900 pounds of beef have cooked in a pit all night and most of the day. Dozens of hungry folks are in line at Del Rio School an hour early. The line grows steadily, and about 1,800 people have been served by nightfall.

What does "all you can eat" mean? "I've heard of people eating 25 or 30 ears of corn," says Kiwanian Mike Olsen. "But I've never actually seen it myself." We can attest to corn lovers stowing away eight or 10 ears, outdoing us by a good bit.

For those with enough stamina, the day ends with a street dance in Memory Park. Early on there are more watchers than dancers; youngsters the most active. Later adults take over the asphalt "floor." If you're not up on Western swing and line dancing, this is the place to watch and learn. By 11 o'clock, though, everyone is ready to pack it in including us. We never did get our fry bread.

This year's First Territorial Capital Days will take place Saturday, September 3. To get to Chino Valley from Phoenix, take Interstate 17 north to Cordes Junction and turn west onto State Route 69 to Prescott. From Prescott, go 15 miles north, toward Ash Fork, on State 89, to the community of Chino Valley. For more information on the celebration, contact the Chino Valley Chamber of Commerce, P.O. Box 419, Chino Valley, AZ 86323; (602) 636-2493.

Legends of the Lost Too Many Clues Confound the Search for a Long-lost Bar of Gold

Not many of the back-road enthusiasts driving the dirt track from Mayer to the site of old Goodwin in the Bradshaw Mountains know about the lost gold bar at the crossing of lower Wolf Creek.

Largely forgotten now, the incident created a minor sensation 97 years ago when a flash flood tore through the creek and killed one man and caused the loss of riches at the time amounting to about $5,000.

The Arizona Journal Miner Weekly reported the facts of the tragedy, linking the dramatic event to two of the owners of one of the largest and bestknown mines in the Bradshaws: the Crowned King.

Legend has it that the rich ledge that was the source of the gold bar was initially discovered by a Walnut Grove schoolteacher who traded it to Orrin F. Place for a saddle. Place, according to the Miner, then sold a half interest to Noah Shekels, a Bradshaw City storekeeper.

Needing a good supply of hard cash to begin development of the site, the partners then drew in George P. Harrington of Illinois, who wrangled up the financial support necessary to start mining the riches from the Earth.

Place, who among the three was perhaps the most knowledgeable about mining, agreed to take charge of the operation. All went well at first, and the Crowned King expanded rapidly as capital poured in. But in a short while, both Shekels and Harrington voiced opposition to Place's management style and took over. Place refused to accept the situation and filed suit to regain control, but nothing came of it.

Later at a stockholders' meeting in Illinois, Place and Harrington fought it out verbally, then Place pulled a gun and attempted to shoot Harrington. Quick-thinking bystanders prevented bloodshed, but the feud did not end there. It continued for several years, eventually boiling up once again following the tragedy at lower Wolf Creek.

It began, reported The Journal Miner, early one day in September of 1897, when Harrington, supposedly planning to attend an older brother's wedding back in Illinois, left the Crowned King Mine in the company of J.P. Bruce, a local freighter. Traveling in a light buggy, they made their way slowly along the only dirt track penetrating the heavily forested countryside. With him Harrington brought several Indian blankets as gifts for his bridegroom brother as well as a bar of gold bullion. Why Harrington had brought the gold with with h him and what he proposed to do with it is not recorded.

When the two travelers arrived at the lower Wolf Creek crossing six miles from Mayer, only a few inches of water flowed between the banks. Crossing would be easy, they believed. There obviously was no need for concern. But then fate intervened. Unknown to the party, a cloudburst had struck upstream, pouring tons of water into the bed of the creek, its full force about to strike the crossing.

No sooner had they entered the stream than the roaring mountain of water, mud, and debris crashed into them, tossing the light buggy and both occupants helter-skelter. The cries of the men and screams of the panicked horses were lost in the tumult.

Harrington somehow managed to grab a tree branch and saved himself by scrambling up the muddy bank. But Bruce, the horses, and buggy were swept away in the violently churning waters.

When his breath returned, Harrington said, he ran downstream searching the debrisladen waters for sight of his companion. But after struggling through the wreckage in the wake of the flash flood, he failed to find any sign of the man, the horses, the buggy, or the bar of gold.

companion. But after struggling through the wreckage in the wake of the flash flood, he failed to find any sign of the man, the horses, the buggy, or the bar of gold.

Exhausted finally, coated with mud and soaked to the skin, Harrington gave up the search and started on foot for Mayer, the nearest civilization, to get help.

Next morning a search party eventually located Bruce's mangled body nearly a mile below the crossing. One horse was badly bruised but alive; the other was dead. Eventually everything that had been in the buggy was found. Except the gold.

The men in the area, mostly rough miners, soon learned of the lost bar of gold, and the wild hunt began, no holds barred and each man a law unto himself. It would end only after weeks of frantic and futile search, which, in terms of time and labor, probably cost more than the gold was worth.

Now the feuding Orrin Place once more entered the picture, accusing Harrington of killing J.P. Bruce and stealing the gold bar. But nothing was ever proved. Did one of the searchers find the gold and hide it again, planning to recover it later? Was Harrington a thief, and did he recover the gold when he hunted alone for the unfortunate Bruce? Or did the heavy bar just sink deep into the mud of the streambed to return in time to its original state?

Maybe.

On the other hand, though, who's to doubt the possibility that somewhere below the crossing of lower Wolf Creek, through which back-road adventurers now hurtle their iron steeds, the glinting bar of gold, today worth about $90,000, might just be resting in plain sight beneath the ripples of shallow water. Just waiting for someone to trip over it.

Roadside Rest The Bridge That Spanned an Ocean Helped Build an Arizona City

It was more than 25 years ago that the Lord Mayor of London himself delivered his oration on the desert: "Try to imagine, if you can," he challenged, "the magnitude of the project that will transport a gigantic historic structure across a mighty ocean to this place."

We followed his vaulting gesture out to wild horizons holding virtually no work of humankind, other than a vast reservoir of incredibly blue water. Otherwise arid emptiness.

Then the Lord Mayor dared us to envision a great city springing from the fertile earth.

We of hizzoner's audience were seated on folding chairs beneath a large floorless party tent. Unrelenting sunrays glinted off the gentleman's glistening temples.

And just think, the mayor implored, of the millions of visitors who will delightfully spend their holidays amid the most luxurious of amenities.

My companion, a somewhat older and more cynical journalist, roughly jabbed an elbow into my ribs, and hissed in a sarcastic stage whisper: "The mind boggles."

We were not the only skeptics among those who did and did not attend the symbolic laying of the first stone of London Bridge on an eastern shore of Lake Havasu. Every aspect of the grandiose scheme to purchase, number, dismantle, and exactly reassemble the 10,276 components of a 136-year-old River Thames bridge seemed to invite doubt and even ridicule.

"I thought it was the stupidest thing I ever heard of," remembers Rosemary Totman, an English-woman then establishing a new life in Arizona.

As difficult as it was long ago to envision the future, it's almost as daunting today to recall the past.

When the transplantation of London Bridge was conceived, Mohave County in far north-western Arizona may have supported the sparsest population in the conterminous 48 states. That outback was so inhospitable, old-timers swore, "You had to dig for wood and climb for water." The site nominated to receive London Bridge was more than 60 lonesome miles hell-and-gone south of the county seat, Kingman, itself a railroad burg of only about 6,000 residents.

The site had served as a rustic fishing camp on 45-mile-long Lake Havasu, which was largely ignored for two decades.

Then in the 1960s, the area captured the attention of the late Chain Saw King, Robert P. McCulloch, Sr., who snapped up some 17,000 acres of state land and financed a master plan for a community of 100,000. He took steps that eventually would move his factories from the West Coast to the Colorado. Alas, sales of homesites in Lake Havasu City lagged.

"You need to have a gimmick," a business associate and former Disney executive, C.V. Woods, Jr., told McCulloch. "For instance, London Bridge is available."

The gracefully arched granite crossing, which had opened in 1831, was burdened by modern traffic and was slowly sink-ing into the sticky mud of the Thames. McCulloch submitted a winning bid of $2.5 million. Before he was done, he would splurge $7.7 million in moving and rebuilding the bridge.

On the English side, the bridge stones were cataloged and salvaged from the top down. Boatloads crossed the Atlantic, passed through the Panama Canal, and docked at Long Beach, California. Trucks carted the blocks to Havasu. There a team of 40 craftsmen worked four years to re-create the bridge. A riverlike channel was dredged from the lake out to and under the span.

Amid much hoopla, and blessed again by a Lord Mayor, London Bridge reopened in its unlikely surroundings in October, 1971.

Under and around its five arches is an English-themed tourist village of artisan works, souvenir shops, and ale-dispensing pubs. Nearby are a double dozen hostels, ranging from plain vanilla to destination resort. Tour boats ply the inlets, and seldom does a week pass without some sort of watersport tournament or historical celebration. It's estimated that 1.5 million annually visit Lake Havasu City to see the fabled London Bridge.

Eventually many of the visitors tire of the commute and put down roots. In fact so many have made the permanent move, Lake Havasu City currently counts more than 32,000 residents, which ranks it as the 13th largest city in the state and the biggest in Mohave County.

So, how wrong we naysayers were. Of course, with the passage of time, not all seekers have found paradise at Lake Havasu. The community has digested and endured its fair measures of human deceits, defeats, and disillusionments. But on balance, Bob McCulloch's utopian fantasy has attained reality. Even the Brits, once bitingly vocal in their disapproval, have mellowed. The Yanks' restoration of London Bridge is perceived as a form of flattery.

Rosemary Totman, who often as a girl and young woman had traversed fogbound London Bridge when it spanned the Thames, came around to a more tolerant point of view, as recently expressed: "Oh, I think it's great! The Germans tried to destroy London Bridge during the war, and its stones still bear the shrapnel scars of bombs. The metal fixtures, made from the melted cannon captured from Napoleon at Waterloo, are preserved. The bridge could have been dumped off some shore to form a submerged breakwater, and what a tragedy that would have been. As it is, people of all stations in life now can experience a little bit of England."

And some of us journalists, a little bit of humility.

ack Road Adventure Copper Creek's Mines Closed Long Ago— Today Only the Mansion Remains, a Startling Relic from the Area's Glory Days

Not 50 yards into Copper Creek Road, a javelina darts past our truck and scampers into the brush. The adventure to the Mansion on Copper Creek has begun.

The building we seek is one of Arizona's most dramatic backcountry surprises: a two-story stone ruin sitting regally in a remote canyon high above the San Pedro River, about 55 miles northeast of Tucson, off State Route 77. It bespeaks an elegance seemingly impossible for such an out-of-the-way place.

Copper Creek, however, was once the hub of mining activity in the Galiuro Mountains east of the town of Mammoth. Originally claimed as a silver mine in 1863, the glory hole revealed a multitude of silver, lead, and copper veins along with gold. Its most active years began around 1900 when a community of about 200 crowded into the canyon to seek a fortune in the rich ore in the Bunker Hill mining district. The mines first closed in 1917 but were reopened from 1933 to 1939 when a rich shaft of molybdenum was discovered. The last large-scale mining to occur in the area was a copper leaching operation in the early 1970s. Overall the mines brought a great deal of wealth to Copper Creek, producing more than 37 million tons of ore, most of it copper.

As we head up into the Galiuros to visit a genuine ghost town, the mesquite thickets of the San Pedro River at Mammoth give room for paloverde, prickly pear, and teddy bear cholla.

My companion is California teacher and outdoorsman Warren Weaver. He has binoculars, Peterson's Field Guide to Western Birds, and a ready memory for flora and fauna of the West. For this trip, a highclearance vehicle is necessary and four-wheel drive is recommended. The Clark Ranch, Oak Grove Canyon, and Rhodes Peak topographic maps are always helpful for a thorough exploration.

We reach the high point on Copper Creek Road (at 3,967 feet, it's 1,500 feet higher than Mammoth) in seven miles. The road is now deteriorating and extremely rough, reducing travel to speeds of about five miles per hour. Before we descend, we can see the roofless ruins of the Bar GF ranch, home of "Sister" Eulalia Bourne, one of the state's most beloved teachers, ranchers, and authors, who died in 1984. From this ranch she wrote four books, including the acclaimed Woman in Levi's. (See Arizona Highways, June '93.) Then we enter Copper Creek Canyon and have an easy first

Back Road Adventure

crossing of the creek. It isn't always so: I have seen this stream, pleasant and quiet today, raging with spring snowmelt. On such occasions, do not attempt to cross it.

Copper Creek Canyon is narrow and lovely. Cottonwoods line the creek; a prickly pear clings to a russet wall; the soothing sound of running water echoes throughout. But the peace of the spot yields to the stark reminders of man's presence. A mill's huge tailings dump looks ready to topple into the canyon. Spray-painted graffiti from thoughtless visitors mar an otherwise gorgeous mahogany-colored canyon wall. A mill foundation and hopper are connected by an aging bridge.

Our road climbs steeply up a ridge, where we stop, 10.2 miles from the beginning of Copper Creek Road, at the foundations of the old post office. A concrete sign set in stone proclaims the town's name. Cement steps lead up to stone-stucco wall remnants. Above the foundation stands a bullet-riddled water tank.

Here the road divides. One of the routes continues uphill toward the Bunker Hill Mine, while the downhill road leads to the mansion.

Slightly downstream from a dam built about 1908, our truck again traverses Copper Creek. We take a right and continue for less than a half mile, ignoring another road heading uphill to (LEFT) This old bridge connected Copper Creek's mill and hopper. (OPPOSITE PAGE) Unlike most of the mansion, its twin towers have survived abandonment fairly well. The 20-room house, built by Roy and Belle Sibley to put Copper Creek on the map, sits in a sycamore grove that was secluded from the noisy mining camp. In its prime, the house featured wide picture windows and polished oak flooring.

A Fall Pilgrimage to Escudilla Earns High Marks for Superb Scenery

It would be a fine place to say goodbye from, so I made the solitary pilgrimage up the 3.3-mile trail early one morning. I was wrapping up my fourth season as a Mexican spotted owl monitor on the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest and wanted one last look at the country I had come to know so well before leaving for the desert heat and city lights of Tucson.

The main path up Escudilla, “the mountain shaped like a bowl,” cuts through a thick stand of aspen trees that flourished after a major fire in 1951, skirts the east side of Toolbox Draw, crosses Profanity Ridge, and runs through a spruce-fir belt before emerging at the lookout. The gradual ascent, climbing 1,300 feet, takes about an hour and a half.

Monsoon rains had effectively ended the summer fire sea-son, the tower was no longer manned, but I still had a key that would allow access to the catwalk and cabin on top. The rains had also brought about the riot of color I had passed on the trail. Indian paintbrush, bluebells, beardlip penstemon, brown-eyed Susans, and thistles competed with a host of other flora to catch and hold the eye. The sprawling subalpine mead-ows were five shades of green, the air filled with the rich scent of damp earth.

October, when the aspen leaves shimmer like molten gold, is probably the most popular time for hikers to venture up Escudilla, but July and August are the best months to see wild-flowers.

The heavy trapdoor swung back, and I had a moment's touch of acrophobia as I leaned over the catwalk railing and looked down. Elevation here is close to 11,000 feet, and the tower rises into the sky near the edge of a long steep drop-off. It was too overcast to see the San Francisco Peaks, as you can on a clear day, but Mount Baldy bulked against the western hori-zon. To the south, part of the Blue Range Primitive Area was visible, and I remembered the blacktail rattlesnake I'd almost stepped on while hiking a rim trail there just days before.

Southwest were hundreds of miles of broken forested moun-tains and canyons I had walked through, day and night, and they triggered more memories.

On one of those distant ridges I had seen a black bear turning over rocks, looking for something to eat. I had foolishly used my own vocal chords to imitate the sound of a wounded rabbit to see if I could lure it closer. The experiment almost worked too well. When the bear was 50 feet away from me, it stood on its hind legs and surveyed the area as I froze into a statue. When it dropped back to all fours and loped away, I was able to breathe once again.

Farther in the distance were the cliffs above the Black River, where I had searched for an endangered peregrine falcon aerie as the adults swooped past my head, shrieking eek, eek, eek. There are only a handful of known nesting pairs in this region, and these had never been documented before.

I came out of my reverie long enough to notice the clouds gathering and moving toward the lookout from the west. Storms brew quickly in the White Mountains, and Escudilla, to the east, gets its share of them. I had said my silent good-byes. It was time to start back down the trail.

WHEN YOU GO

To get to Escudilla, take U.S. Route 191 about four miles north from Alpine to the Forest Service Road 56 turnoff (just north of Milepost 421, on east side of road). This graded dirt road ascends five miles to Terry Flat Loop. At the junction, bear left .5 mile to the parking spot near the bottom of Toolbox Draw. Pick up free maps and information at the trailhead. Two hundred yards up the trail you enter Escudilla Wilderness. The lookout tower is occupied only during the fire season, late May through August. Be sure to carry enough water two to four quarts per person for the entire 6.6-mile hike. For more information, contact the Alpine Ranger Station, (602) 339-4384.